


Handy Tips For Stress Relief

by Midnight_Masquerade



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, Celibacy, Gen, I Seem To Have a Thing About Using All The Characters When Writing Forever, Masturbation talk, No Nonsense Jo, Prompt Fill, Sexual Frustration, Stressed Henry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:23:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Masquerade/pseuds/Midnight_Masquerade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry is on edge. Jo is losing her patience, thinks that some *ahem* quality time is all he needs, and is not shy about broaching the subject. Prompt Fill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handy Tips For Stress Relief

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt originally given to Steamshovelmama and then bequeathed to me: Henry is stressed – Jo suggests some “alone time” (i.e. masturbation) and finds out that he doesn’t.

The first time Henry snapped at her unprovoked, she didn't think much of it. The case they were on had been dragging out for weeks and was running them all ragged. Even Lucas had stopped injecting anecdotes into every other sentence, and Jo decided to cut them all some slack. She simply levelled him with an unamused eyebrow and changed the subject, and that was the end of it until they were finally snapping the handcuffs closed on their suspect.

She's not quite sure how it happened, but several hours later Henry was part of the crowd escaping the precinct and heading down to the local bar. They were all soon slumped in their chairs, staring vacantly at their drinks and sharing rather scattered conversation, and Jo nearly didn't notice her friend's restlessness. It wasn't until Henry's jiggling knee knocked into the table leg, almost upsetting the glasses for the third time that she heaved an exaggerated sigh and let her head flop in his direction.

“Henry. Cut it out.”

He looked at her, surprised, then seemed to realise for the first time what he was doing. He stilled, “Sorry.”

She waved away his apology and turned her attention back to the rest of the group. Henry was normally the epitome of refined control, but they were all still running on adrenaline – she was feeling pretty tightly wound herself, and knew that she likely wouldn't sleep that night. His constant shifting was only to be expected.

When his fingers started drumming out an unrelenting rhythm on the arm of his chair, she simply rolled her eyes and ignored him.

The next time she saw Henry was several days later at a crime scene, crouched over the body of a young woman with Hanson hovering inside the yellow tape.

“What have we got?” Jo asked Hanson when she reached him.

“Drive by shooting.” he told her, “Probably a local gang – at least, that's the humble opinion of the professionals.”

“Henry disagrees?” she guessed.

“Insists it was hit.” he said, “Being even more obnoxious about it than usual.”

Jo ducked under the tape and strode over to Henry, who spared her no more than a cursory glance. “Come to slap my wrists?” he asked.

“Henry.” she said warningly, “Play nice with Hanson.”

“Detective Hanson is letting his desire for a quiet day overshadow the truth.” he replied, “A young woman is dead and yet New York's finest seem completely apathetic.”

Jo huffed, irritated. “What's with you lately, Henry? You seem... off.”

Henry stood and pulled off his latex gloves with a curt, “I'm fine, Detective,” and Jo decided to give him some space. She turned her attention to the crime scene and let him walk away, hoping that a few hours down at the morgue would put him in a better mood.

No such luck.

It was late afternoon when she headed down into the labs below the precinct, the cool air a pleasant change from the stuffy, overcrowded bullpen. Despite Henry's assertions, this case was shaping up to be fairly open and shut, and she was hoping to be able to actually leave when her shift ended for the first time in weeks.

The elevator doors slid open and Jo stepped out, only to be nearly mown down by over 6 foot of blue scrubs.

“God, sorry!” Lucas backed out of her personal space and Jo righted herself. She looked at him, realising that he looked unusually harried.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, and Lucas shifted nervously. “Lucas?”

“I don't know.” Lucas admitted, glancing over his shoulder, “He's never like this! I mean he can get impatient, sure, but he never-”

Jo interrupted him, “Who? Henry?”

“Yeah. I don't know what's gotten him so tetchy, I don't think it's anything to do with this case.”

“I'll talk to him.” she sighed, and strode off down the corridor, Lucas stuttering his thanks after her.

Henry was wrist deep in the latest victim, muttering something under his breath. Jo got close enough to make out what sounded like “idiots” before he realised she was there and greeted her with an over-cheery “Ah, Detective!” before launching straight into his findings, evidence for why this case was more complicated than everyone was hoping, and why the entire department was, in fact, completely incompetent. Jo let him talk in the vague hope that he'd wind himself down and be less likely to argue with her.

“Are you getting all this, Detective?” Henry asked eventually, covering the corpse with the sheet. He looked over to where Jo was leaned up against an empty table, arms folded.

She nodded, “Loud and clear. I especially liked the part where we should all get re-trained.”

“Is a little due diligence really so much to ask?” he asked. His back was turned to her now and he was focussed on clearing away his surgical tools.

Jo frowned at the tense line of his shoulders. “Are you sure you're alright?”

“I am perfectly fine, Detective.” he said, not sparing her a glance.

“Would you tell me if you weren't?” she asked.

“Of course.” he clearly wasn't even trying to sound convincing, and Jo realised that had been a rather futile question. She dragged Henry upstairs to discuss his findings with Hanson and Lt. Reece, resolving to keep half an eye on him for the rest of the case.

It proved easier than expected. Henry made no moves to draw away from the team and nothing seemed to be distracting him from the investigation. He was simply short tempered and snappish, seemingly eager to make everything more difficult than it needed to be, and Jo came to the conclusion that he was just suffering from a build up of stress and tension – God knew it was hardly a rare occurrence in their line of work. And while of the two of them, Jo was not the medically trained one, she was apparently the only one who knew how to solve Henry's problem (which, so long as he kept showing up to work in a bad mood, was also _her_ problem): he clearly needed some, ahem... personal quality time. She was tempted to raise the subject straight away, but doubted that he would agree until the case was closed. That was alright, she could put up with him until then.

“Then” turned out to be three days and one soul-crushing stakeout later, and if Jo had been tolerant of Henry's agitation before, she was positively sympathetic after that. So, true to her word, she headed back down into the scrubbed whiteness of the morgue that evening.

She found Lucas and Henry clearing up, the younger man chatting away as he signed off the last of the victim's paperwork. Henry wasn't even bothering with his usual air of polite disinterest, which irritated Jo – Lucas might rarely pause for breath, but he was a good kid, and shouldn't have to put up with his boss in a strop.

She sent a casual wave in Lucas's direction and parked herself on the other side of the autopsy table from Henry. “You got a minute?” she asked, leaning her hips against the cold metal.

“Believe me, I have considerably more than one.” he said, and Jo took it as a yes.

“Look, Henry,” she said firmly, “you were right about this case, and believe me we all appreciate your input, you've not steered us wrong yet-”

“And yet you all continue to argue.”

“ _But_ , that doesn't make in any less likely that one of us will eventually snap and break your nose.”

Both men turned to look at her, sensing the irritation in her tone. Jo leant her palms on the table and ploughed on, “You're stressed, you're wound up. I get it, it happened to all of us, but we deal with it and so should you.” she lowered her voice, adopting her reasonable, I'm-about-to-suggest-a-very-good-idea tone that she'd honed over years of interrogations. “The case is over. Go home, lock the doors, take some time to, you know... blow off some steam.”

Henry's annoyance was abruptly replaced by surprise. “Detective, are you suggesting that I-”

“Beat one out?” she interrupted, “Exactly.”

There was an almighty crash, and they both turned to see Lucas scrambling to collect the tray of surgical equipment he'd just upended all over the floor. “I, uh...” he straightened, looking anywhere but at the two of them. His cheeks were splotched a vivid pink. “These'll need to be resterilised, uh, I'll go get one of the lab techs.” He scurried out of the room.

Henry had the grace to look a little shame-faced, but Jo decided a crash course in the upfront, no-nonsense nature of the public service world could do Lucas no harm. She carried on as if there had been no interruption, “I figured you'd be the euphemistic type, but whatever works.”

“Detective.” Henry shifted almost uncomfortably, “I'm afraid it's not that simple.”

Jo allowed herself a small sigh of frustration. “Come on, Henry. I know you like your privacy, but there's such a thing as too far. This is a job with a lot of pressure and being coy isn't going to do you any good. Trust me, no judgement, we all do it. Unless you get off on strangling cats or something.” she grinned, but his expression remained serious. “You _don't_ get off on strangling cats, do you?”

“Of course I don't, Detective.” he said, with an exasperated stare that made her snort with laughter. “If you must know, I don't...” he waved a hand vaguely.

Jo frowned, then realised what he was getting at and gaped at him. “You don't masturbate? At _all?_ ”

“No.”

“ _Ever?_ ”

“It's not as unusual as you might think, Detective.” he said, “Many people abstain from sexual pleasure unless they have a partner they truly care about. In fact, for some people an emotional connection with another person is a vital ingredient and without that-”

“Okay, okay.” she held up a hand to halt the lecture she knew he was about to launch into, realising guiltily that she was making him uncomfortable. “You're right, I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry, it's just... well, you're a closed book, Henry. I guess any information about you at all comes as a surprise.”

“It's alright.” he said, his mouth curling up into an amused smile, “I realise that for a man of my age, such pursuits are presumed. Expected, even.”

“Yeah.” she agreed, “Well, will you... I dunno, go ride your bike up a hill, or... kick a pigeon, whatever it is you _do_ do? Be in a better mood next time you come upstairs?”

“Of course. I apologise, Jo.”

“No worries. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh,” she turned on her way out of the room, “You might wanna check on Lucas, make sure we haven't scarred him for life.”

He flicked his gaze to the door where Lucas had made his hasty retreat, and chuckled, the rest of his awkwardness evaporating. “Perhaps you're right. Goodnight Detective.”

“Goodnight, Henry.”

 


End file.
